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OHIO Celebrates Juneteenth

Ohio University Libraries is pleased to present acquisitions made in honor of Ohio University's annual Juneteenth celebration.

Mourning/Warning Series

Mourning/Warning flags (Primrose Press, 2018) is one in an edition of nine from Tia Blassingame.

The Mourning/Warning flags were described in an online exhibition curated by Booklyn as, "a series of forty-two sewn nylon flags that correspond to people listed in Blassingame’s book works Mourning/Warning: An Abecedarian and the recent Mourning/Warning: Numbers and Repeaters. Each flag represents an African American man, woman or child that experienced violence, is missing, or died from violence or police brutality including Trayvon Martin, Marissa Alexander, Eric Garner, Oscar Grant, Phoenix Coldon, and Mario Woods."

Mourning/Warning: An Abecedarian (Primrose Press, 2021 reprint) and Mourning/Warning: Numbers and Repeaters (Primrose Press, 2021 reprint) are each one in a reprint of 26 copies from Tia Blassingame's Primrose Press.

Artist's description: “Stripping the maritime alphabet of its primary colors and replacing them with muted browns and blacks, Mourning/Warning highlights the relationship of Americans of the African diaspora to water, maritime travel and the need for an alternate means of communication in times of emergency and duress. How do you send a warning call that hatred comes constantly in waves?

M/W serves as a method of honoring, mourning, and remembering the slain and wronged as well as teaching our children and ourselves to be vigilant and wary in hostile terrain, where your skin color makes you an easy target.”

A portion of the sales proceeds of Mourning/Warning are donated to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Southern Poverty Law Center, and Innocence Project. We encourage you to donate using the links above.

Mourning/Warning: An Abecedarian

cover of M/W, a brown background with white font
A is to Marissa Alexander. A white field with brown triangular shape
B is for James Byrd Jr: A brown field with a white triangular cut out
C is for John Crawford III: horizontal stripes-tan, white, brown, white, tan
D is for Thomas Eric Duncan: A tan field with brown stripes running horizontally across the top and bottom
E is for Eric Garner: a half tan, half brown field divided horizontally
F is for Jonathan Ferrell: a white field with a brown diamond in the center
G is for Oscar Grant: alternating black and tan vertical stripes
H is for Gerrick Hopkins: half white, half brown field divided vertically
I: a black field with a blue circle in the center
J is for Jordan DAvis: a tan field with a white horizontal stripe
K is for Kajieme Powell: a half black, half tan field divided vertically
M is for Ronald Madison: a brown field with a white x
N is for Niles Meservey: white field with brown vertical stripes running along left and right
O is for Oriana Ferrell: half brown half tan field, divided diagonally
P is for Marlene Pinnock: brown field with white square in the center
R is for Renisha McBride: brown field with a white cross
S is for Sean Bell: white field with a tan square in the center
U: alternating white and brown squares in a grid
V is for Vonderrit D. Myers: white field with a brown x
W is for Alfred Wright: white field, tan square in center, brown border
X: white field with a tan cross
Y is for Yvette Smith: brown and tan alternating diagonal stripes
Z is for Ousmane Zongo: triangular sections in tan, brown, black, blue
Colophon is written in white on a tan background

Mourning/Warning: Numbers and Repeaters

cover of M?W, a brown background with white font
Zero, Miriam Carey, five brown plus signs on a white field
One, Marco McMillian, a brown field with a black horizontal stripe in the center
Two, Kerrice Lewis, a black field with a brown horizontal stripe bisecting it
Three, Amia Tyrae, a tan field with a brown horizontal stripe bisecting it
Four, Natasha McKenna, a brown field with a white x
Five, Freddie Gray, a black field with a tan x
Seven, Lamar Smith, white and brown stripes running diagonally
Seven, Jessica Williams, a brown field with a white vertical stripe bisecting it
Eight, Kendrick Johnson, black field with a tan vertical stripe
Nine, Karryn Gaines, a tan field with a vertical white stripe
blank page
1st repeater, Phoenix Caldon, pennant with a black center and black outline
2nd repeater, John Robinson, brown pennant flag with a white tip
3rd repeater, Charleena Lyles, white pennant flag with blue horizontal stripe
4th repeater, Mario Woods, brown pennant flag with a black box
page with colophone, text included in the main exhibit text
back cover is a white page with a large blue box taking up the bottom of the page with a white margin

Emergence

Emergence (Dallas, A Bee Press, 2006) is 1 in an edition of 10 artists' books created by Alisa Banks.

Photograph of Emergence by Alisa Banks Photograph of Emergence by Alisa Banks

In the words of creator Alisa Banks: “Emergence is a book about examining truths in order to develop self-truths. The book consists of 3 pieces – Litany, a series of sayings that my sisters and I heard while growing up; Candle, containing an embedded medallion of St. Michael the Archangel; Election, a symbolic culmination – all relating to my family which hails from rural southern Louisiana.”

While this book is a work of art, it is also meant to be touched, manipulated, used, and read. Banks hopes that students and others will interact with Emergence and through that interaction, will experience a philosophical self-searching. Emergence is about the art of discernment, about questioning the “truths” we grew up with and that surround us and about realizing that things are not always what they seem and should not necessarily be taken at face value.